Conditions in a field, including the environmental and/or seed-bed conditions in a field, can impact the efficacy of agricultural operations performed on the field.
As one example, for various reasons, it is important to maintain a given amount of crop residue within a field following an agricultural operation. Specifically, crop residue remaining within the field can help in maintaining the content of organic matter within the soil and can also serve to protect the soil from wind and water erosion. However, in some cases, leaving an excessive amount of crop residue within a field can have a negative effect on the soil's productivity potential, such as by slowing down the warming of the soil at planting time and/or by slowing down seed germination. As such, the ability to monitor and/or adjust the amount of crop residue remaining within a field can be very important to maintaining a healthy, productive field, particularly when it comes to performing tillage operations.
As another example, for various reasons, it is important to maintain a given amount of soil roughness within a field before or following an agricultural operation. For example, when planting seeds it is generally not desired to have soil clods that are larger than a certain size.
However, respective conditions throughout most fields are highly variable. That is, conditions at one portion of the field may be significantly different than conditions at a different portion of the field. Thus, when using agricultural machinery to manipulate (e.g., till and/or plant within) the field, the control settings used to successfully obtain a desired finish for one portion of the field may not directly translate to another portion of the field. That is, due to varying conditions within a field, agricultural tools needs to be adjusted to account for site-specific conditions.